CLINICAL PEDIATRICS, Volume 39, Number 1: Page 65,
January 2000.

Letters to the Editor

Focus on the
foreskin,
Not its destruction

To the Editor:

As a
surgeon, it is no surprise that you are interested in
circumcision surgery.1 As a
human being, it is surprising that you have no interest in
the mechanical gliding function and the erogenous sexual
benefits of the foreskin. Dr. Taylor2 beautifully describes the anatomy, sex
nerves, and physiology of the foreskin.

The
Health Care Financing Administration provides no room for
debate about circumcision. According to HCFA, circumcision
requires a patient-voiced complaint, physical abnormality,
and a pathologist's report documenting the pathology. Failing
HCFA necessity criteria, circumcision is fraud and abuse.

The
treatment for infection is antibiotics, not amputation.
Circumcision fails the Severity of Illness Intensity of
Service criteria. The foreskin is not an
"infection–facilitative factor." Van Howe3 clearly elucidates the immunologic
functions of the foreskin. Additionally, the neonatal
foreskin is firmly adherent to the glans like a fingernail to
its nail bed. It protects both mechanically and
immunologically against infection.

For
scientific evidence, compare statistics with non-circumcising
countries. Intact neonates, with a virgin foreskin never
subjected to ripping retraction from the glans during their
medical exams, fare better than either circumcised infants or
uncircumcised infants subjected to ripping retraction.
Parents need to know that the infant is born with the
foreskin fused to the glans and must view ripping of the
immature foreskin from the immature glans as a painful type
of sexual abuse, an invitation to infection, and damage to
the undeveloped erogenous sex nerves.

Heuristics mandates that the child keep his foreskin and
learn its mechanical and erogenous sexual benefits. The child
is the owner of his foreskin. The child is the patient.
Circumcision a not a matter of family choice. The circumciser
needs the signed legal informed consent of the patient
himself. Once he has enjoyed his god-given foreskin, he will
not consent to man taking it by circumcision.